All posts by Javier Garcia Hernandez

After the courses already completed in Peru, Argentina, Spain, Switzerland and China, a new course in hydrological and hydraulic modelling with the RS MINERVE software has taken place the 11th and 12th of April in the Universidad Nacional de Colombia (UNAL), Bogota, Colombia.

The objective of the course was to train participants in hydrological and hydraulic modelling through the use of different RS MINERVE modules and to test the knowledge acquired through the application of several practical cases. At the end of the course, the students were able to run RS MINERVE tools in their respective research works or other professional activities.

The teaching session has been conducted in Spanish by the specialist Javier Fluixá Sanmartín from the CREALP.

The course, taught by Javier Fluixá Sanmartín, from the Centre de recherche sur l’environnement alpin (CREALP-Switzerland) was organized in collaboration with the University of Zurich and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).

It is used to take into account a consumption site (agriculture, cities, etc). A series in the database is used as the demand of the Consumer object. If no information about consummation exists in the database, the parameter Default QDemand is used for the whole period of the simulation as uniform demand.

The Loss Rate parameter provides the distribution losses of a demand site (physical leaks, clandestine connections, etc). If the input discharge (Qup) is sufficient, the delivered flow (Qdelivered) is equal to the Qdemand and the supply requirement (Qsupplied) is equal to the Qdemand divided by (1-LossRate), otherwise the supply requirement is equal to the input discharge (Qup). Then, the Consumption Rate parameter is used to determine the discharge consumed by the demand site and which is lost (evaporation, embodied products, etc). The discharge remainder (Qreturn) is returned to the main system. The output flow is equal to the input flow minus the losses and the effective consumption (Qconsumed)

The Consumer object calculates the losses, the consumed discharge as well as the downstream hydrograph, as presented in next equations. At the same time, the object also calculates the unmet demand and the demand coverage (%) series during the simulation period.

Would you like to manage your hydropower plant based on the reservoir level or the electricity price? Would you like to pump based on the upper level reservoir? To determine predefined rules to manage floods and reduce peak discharge downstream?

The new regulation available to realize these examples will be available in the coming days. This regulation allows the discharge management based on different inputs from anywhere of the model. In addition, it can also take into account a defined timetable based on hours, days or months.

The combination of complex rules and conditions in the new regulation can characterize main real states of hydropower plants or other hydraulic structures. It will allow RS MINERVE to be positioned as a very interesting software for solving hydraulic issues.

Two courses (beginner and advanced) about ‘Hydrological and hydraulic modelling with RS MINERVE’ were held on May 17th to 19th and on May 20th 2016 in the Headquarters of the National Service of Meteorology and Hydrology of Peru (SENAMHI), in Lima, Peru.

In the first course, for beginners, theoretical and practical parts have been combined to provide the required knowledge to model hydrological basins with the help of RS MINERVE. 42 participants from different Peruvian organizations and consulting enterprises took part with a great interest and success.

In the second course, for advanced users which already followed the course for beginners in 2014 or 2015, the details of the different modules of RS MINERVE where revealed. Then, a practical exercise allowed the participants to become experts in hydrological and hydraulic modelling with RS MINERVE. 31 participants took part in this second course.

The courses, taught by J. García Hernández and J. Fluixá Sanmartín, from the Centre de recherche sur l’environnement alpin (CREALP-Switzerland) was organized in collaboration with the SENAMHI, the CREALP, the University of Zurich, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Meteodat, Care Perú, Proyecto Glaciares+ and the Ecole Polytechnique Fédédale de Lausanne (EPFL).

The next courses with RS MINERVE, organized by the CREALP, will take place on 3 and 4 December in Lima and on 16 and 17 December in Valencia, Spain.

First course in Lima will be a course on ‘Hydrological and hydraulic simulations in command line with RS MINERVE’ and will explain the use of the program for real-time operational systems as well as for research projects needing an important amount of simulations or special requirements.

Second course in Valence will be a course on ‘Hydrological and hydraulic modelling with RS MINERVE’ as part of the Master’s Degree programme in Hydraulic and Environment, and will explain main aspects of the software, such as the new automatic creation of hydrological models from GIS shapefiles.

As usual, both courses will combine theoretical and practical sessions to provide the knowledge required to model hydrological basins with the help of RS MINERVE.

RS MINERVE has increased its visibility since its creation in 2011. Over 2015, we have had visits from 56 different countries. Main visitors come from Switzerland, Peru, Spain, Brazil, Mexico, the United States, Canada and South Korea.

During the first 7 months of 2015, we have had more than 3’000 pages viewed by more than 1’000 visitors accounting for more than 300 downloads of RS MINERVE. If we add direct downloads from the officiel download page on the Crealp website, more than 700 people have already downloaded RS MINERVE this year !! We are becoming a big community and we thank all the users for being part of this adventure !

Have you ever used RS MINERVE ? Not yet ? Do you know its advantages compared to other similar programs? Some reasons why RS MINERVE could be really interesting for you are given hereafter :

The hydrological-hydraulic model can be built with different hierarchical levels (called sub-models) which easily allow the organization of your model per region. A must for large models!

The different hydrological models (SOCONT, HBV, SAC-SMA, etc) can be easily converted from one to another in order to test which model provides the best performance.

The RS GIS tool allows the connection between the hydrological model and the shapefiles. The simulation and visualization of the results can then be directly realized from the RS GIS.

The user-friendly interface has been built for an easy understanding of the program and you can rapidly execute you first hydrological simulation.

The calibration module performs perfectly optimization of the hydrological parameters. Different algorithms can be tested and the objective function can be modified to adapt it to the user’s interest.

You do not need to create meteorological series for each element of your model, but only a database with your observed meteorological data. Then, each element will automatically build its meteorological series based on the database.